It is known that Yaroslav the Wise, passing off his daughter Anna to the French king, gave her a dowry book on wooden boards, which is believed to have survived to this day. In any case, copies on paper have been made from it. It was called "The Book of Veles" and told about the times before the Rurik dynasty. It is assumed that by sending this book to Europe, Yaroslav wanted to tell European civilization about the ancient history of Russia. According to the Book of Veles, in Russia for a very long time there was a clan of Bogumir, who had five children, including the sons Seva and Rus, from whom the northerners and Russians descended. Perhaps this was the beginning of how Russia became Russia, since in this legend there is a male name with the root "Rus", which later formed the basis of the name of the state "Rus".
In Russia there were unions of tribes before Rurik
"The Book of Veles" repeatedlyindicates that Russia as an association of Slavic (and, possibly, other) tribes has existed since ancient times. In this literary work there are references to very ancient events, when the proto-Russian tribes went to Egypt, lived in the Carpathian region, reached the territory of present-day China, etc. Therefore, it is possible to consider the question of how Russia became Russia not from the time of Rurik, but from earlier.
Nevertheless, modern history believes that it was this leader of the Varangian squad who was the first to unite the Slavic tribes during the period of civil strife and attacks by external enemies (in 862 AD). It is assumed that he was the grandson of the Novgorod prince (the son of the prince's daughter), who invited him to rule in Novgorod due to the difficult situation and his own old age. Therefore, the theory that Scandinavians created Russia is considered not very consistent. If we turn to the "Book of Veles", we can find an indication that the ancient authors did not consider Rurik a Russian, they believed that he exercised his power by force. Perhaps the authors of the book belonged to a Slavic tribe at war with Novgorod, for whom the power of Rurik, who is also believed to have been baptized according to Christian traditions, was undesirable.
How did Russia become a maritime power?
Initially, the Russian state was a collection of settlements along the trade routes "from the Varangians to the Greeks", which Rurik and his retinue helped to control. The centers of this quasi-state formation were Kyiv andNovgorod. Approximately in the 8th-9th centuries AD, the development of the territories of Central Russia (between the Volga and the Oka) began, which for several centuries were a periphery relative to Kievan Rus. After the Mongol conquests (in the 13th century), the importance of these lands increased, and a new center appeared here - Moscow, around which a new stage of consolidation of territories into the principality of Moscow began. The inhabitants of this state formation participated in the discovery of new lands, including the upper reaches of the Kama, the banks of the Pechora, the Northern Dvina, the White Sea. We can say that already in those days the Russian state was a maritime power, however, in the waters without active international trade routes.
Success of John the Fourth (the Terrible) in the annexation of territories
In 1380, the Moscow army defeated the Mongol-Tatars, and a hundred years later, on the Ugra River, they completely freed the Russian lands from the foreign yoke. By this time, Rzhev, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Ustyug and others were already among the Russian lands. That's how Russia became such a big country already in those days. The territorial successes of the predecessors were strengthened by the next ruler of Russia - Ivan the Fourth (the Terrible). He annexed the vast lands of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates to the Moscow possessions. He also left a manuscript for posterity, in which, perhaps for the first time, the name “Russia” appeared in the Old Slavonic language. This document is the first message from Ivan the Terrible to Prince Andrei Kurbsky, which is signed as drawn up inthe reigning patron city of Russia, Moscow, on the fourth of July 7072 from the summer of the universe. Perhaps this is how Russia became Russia in its name. Although it is worth noting that in the title of the second epistle of Ivan the Terrible to Kurbsky, the tsar appears as the sovereign, the Grand Duke of “all Russia”, that is, both the name “Rus” and “Russia” were in use.
The largest state on the planet
In the future, the Russian state continued to increase its territory for several centuries. Even before Ivan the Fourth, the Russian tsars managed to annex the Pskov and Ryazan lands to their existing possessions. The upper reaches of the Oka and Vyazma were taken from the Principality of Lithuania and returned. At the beginning of the 16th century, the upper reaches of the Western Dvina and the entire basin of the Desna River became part of Muscovy, and it became the largest state of those times and remains so to this day. In the 80s of the 16th century, active development of Siberia began. The cities of Tomsk, Tobolsk, Tyumen and Mangazeya were founded there, but the territories received in the B altic states as a result of the Livonian War were lost by the end of the reign of the same Ivan the Terrible.
How did Russia become a big country? It should be noted that the development of most of the new lands was predominantly peaceful in nature, since the Siberian lands were relatively sparsely populated, and after the arrival of the Cossacks, the population there began to actively sell, for example, furs in exchange for goods of a higher level of civilization (weapons, etc.).). But the history of our country is rich in military clashes duringthe development of predominantly western territories and the capture of some eastern countries. In the seventeenth century, as a result of wars, Russia lost part of the lands in the Smolensk and Chernihiv regions, however, in the 50s of the same century, the Left-Bank Ukraine and Zaporizhia received. In the 1620-50s, an unprecedented leap was made in the development of Siberia - the Russians first came to the coast of the Yenisei, and then the Sea of Okhotsk. However, many are interested in the question of how Russia became an empire.
The Emperor rules the empire
It is believed that this event occurred during the reign of Peter the Great, who took the title of emperor in 1721 at the request of the Senate, after the victory in the Northern War. As a result of this military campaign, which lasted from 1700 to 1721, the Russian state included Karelia, Izhora, Estonia and Livonia, the southern part of the Finnish lands up to Vyborg, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. Peter the Great established trade relations with European states and made his country a maritime power, this time in a strategically important water area.
The peoples of the Chukchi could not be conquered - they joined themselves
After Russia became an empire, its territorial "appetites" only increased. For the period from 1723 to 1732, the lands of the Caspian were included in its composition. At the same time, the development of Altai, the lands along the Yaik River, began. In the twenties of that century, the peoples of the Chukchi voluntarily join the Russian Empire (previously they could not be conquered three times by Russian Cossacks), then Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands. In the second half of the eighteenth century, as a result of the Russian-Turkish wars, the empirereceives the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, Crimea, the Black Sea, and after the division of the Commonwe alth - Lithuania, Belarus, Courland and North-Western Ukraine. At the end of the century, part of Kazakhstan, Alaska and the Southern Altai join Russia.
Nineteenth century - maximum territory
In the nineteenth century, Russia had both gains and losses of territories. How did Russia become Russia today, given those events? The "acquisitions" of that time include the accession of Finland, Dagestan, Bessarabia, part of Poland, Western Georgia. Then Armenia, part of the territories of Azerbaijan and another “portion” of Kazakh lands (the so-called Elder Zhus) became part of the Russian lands. In the second half of the century, the Russian Empire reaches its maximum historical size - it includes the North Caucasus, Central Asia, part of Xinjiang (temporarily, in the 60s). In addition, Moscow received a protectorate over the territory of present-day Tuva (Uriankhai lands), gained a foothold on the Amur, in Primorye, on Sakhalin. As compensation for the latter, Japan then received the Kuril Islands (Sakhalin passed to Japan again as a result of the war of 1904-1905, but not for long by historical standards). In 1867, Alaska was also lost in connection with a deal made with America.
In the twentieth century, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union that arose (and then collapsed) again either gained or lost territories. It is worth mentioning the loss of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Polish, Bessarabianterritories after the First World War and the receipt of the Kuril Islands, South Sakhalin, and the Kaliningrad Region as a result of the Second World War. During the hostilities of the middle of the century, the Republic of Tuva officially became part of the USSR. And in 1991, after the separation of the former Soviet republics, the current Russia turned out.
United by lands and genes
How did Russia become one big country? During the development of territories, various ethnic groups and peoples who lived on them (and arrived in those places) entered into trade and military alliances, as well as marital relations, which entailed the mixing of genes. Today, a fairly common genetic type in Russia is R1a 1a, which is massively distributed both in Central Russia and in Southern Siberia, which once again emphasizes the unity of peoples not only at the territorial, but also at the genetic level.
